


Apple Distortion

by ProwlingThunder



Series: The Everlasting List of Shenanigans [71]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Apple Shenanigans, Brainwashed!Malik, Character Death, Gen, Templar AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-01
Updated: 2014-05-01
Packaged: 2018-01-21 11:09:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1548479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProwlingThunder/pseuds/ProwlingThunder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt!Fill. Templar AU.</p><p>Kadar dies. Malik knows just who to blame, and he'll get it. His Brothers will take care of him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apple Distortion

Kadar was dead. Kadar was dead, his heart had stopped, a blade of steel between the ribs, beneath the ribs, up through soft tissues--

 

Kadar was dead, and growing cold. Malik held him tighter and tried to remember what had happened, how it had happened; it was hard, his heart and his mind warring with one another, because his baby brother was dead dead dead and he didn't remember how he had gotten to this point, Malik had to know, he had to remember--

 

There had been a fight.

 

Malik held Kadar tighter to his chest, even as the blood began to dry and stain his clothes. Journeyman white and gray, the blade was gone but Malik had killed enough and seen enough death to know what had caused it. Sharp and short, a knife, buried to the hilt, just long enough--

 

He tried to turn his mind back further, to look past the knife buried in his brother's chest-- the one that wasn't there now, but had been, but had been pulled, that let him bleed out. It was hard. The hand was gauntleted--

 

Something twisted.

 

The hand wasn't bare, but held a bracer. A right hand, five fingers. An arm sheathed in white, splattered with red. It seemed off, somehow, though; Malik tried to focus on it, but it shied away under his scrutiny.

 

No! He had to know, he had to think!

 

Strange snow-white, rare in this part of the world; it only snowed once or twice a year, even in Jerusalem, he and Kadar had been from there, born in the cradle of the Holy Land, their father an Assassin yes but Mother had needed stability and Father had been stationed there at the time of their birth, and Mother had skills that were useful, that would be beneficial, so the Order hadn't objected when she had taken her craft with her when Father had moved to the city.

 

She'd died eventually. Malik had been young, he didn't remember how. Father couldn't do his job and take care of two sons, so Malik and Kadar had been moved to Masyaf and tended to by young matrons and healers.

 

He was getting sidetracked. Malik tried to focus again, frowning--

 

"Sir, we've finished looking for him. It seems he got away."  
  
Malik didn't quite whirl, but he turned quickly, gripping his blade in his hand; he struggled to keep his brother on his lap with his left arm, numb as it was. And cold. So cold, seeping into his bones, trying to drag him to slumber or death...

 

A half-dozen Templars stood in the room, three close enough to him that if he so desired he could release Kadar's body and stand and dispatch them all in a breath, cold numbness traveling up his left side nonwithstanding. Two of them were not even facing him, and the one that was had found something interesting on the wall well above his head. Didn't mean he could kill them any less, but there was something polite about it. Still...

 

A dozen Templars, and Malik was...

 

"Nevermind him. Are the horses ready? We have to take our wounded and dead back to the city. The coward can wait."

 

"Yes, sir. We've brought the cloth, as you requested."  
  
The blond was in charge-- and he had to be in charge, had to be, he was the only one not wearing a helm but the cross was emblazoned on his tunic, blood on snow, splattered, wet. He turned to him, took a step closer, and Malik bristled at him, tried to haul Kadar further into his lap.

 

The stranger spread open fingers, open arms. No weapon in hand, harmless. "Easy, brother, easy." Malik faltered. The blond continued. "We have to get you into the city. You have lost a good deal of blood. I am amazed you are awake."  
  
Malik frowned at him. "I am not your brother."  
  
"In blood, no. In arms and wishes, yes. I am sure you wish to get revenge on your blood-brother's murderer? As do we all. No one takes our own."  
  
"I am an Assassin." It was simple, a statement, and it felt... wrong. Somehow. But right. Wrong and right? How was that even possible? Malik struggled with the impossibility of it, hugged Kadar's corpse a little closer, white-knuckle grip on the hilt of the sword. The edges of his vision bled black.

 

One of the Templars protested. "Sir, are you sure...?"

 

"Quiet Williams. It is long past time we pulled them out." The blond flipped the helmed Templar a look, then returned to Malik, eyes falling on Kadar briefly, sad and heartwrenchingly so, like he actually cared.

 

Malik believed he did. He just.. didn't know why. "You and your brother are Templars, Malik," And Malik heard his name said like the stranger knew him, knew him, like they'd been friends or something. Malik was certain he'd never seen him before... had he? He couldn't have. He wasn't...

 

But he felt familiar. "You infiltrated the Assassins with your father, years ago. They must have made you forget who you were. Or perhaps you forgot. But they found you out, and they brought you here. Attacked you. Killed Kadar. Do you not remember?"  
  
Suddenly Malik did. He remembered the body attached to the arm, and the face that it wore; Altair, pompus, too-sharp Altair, lord of shiny things and stomping on the Creed, needlessly wasting life, bringing them down here, alerting the Templars and--

 

And then turning on them, in the midsts of should-be enemies. Pain flared in the numbness, originating from his arm, bright enough to make him waver. He ground his teeth, determined not to pass out. He remembered Altair's sword, sharp, off-weighted in his hands but an extension of Altair's, swinging through the air and--

 

Malik had been too slow to block. It had caught him unawares, he'd not been able to bring his guard up quick enough, or draw his own sword. It had knocked him aside. And then, just as quick, Altair had stepped forward and...

 

A dagger, into Kadar's chest.

 

Malik felt lightheaded. The world tilted. No, no, no--

 

But he believed it, and he felt the truth. The Assassins had betrayed them, had betrayed Kadar, Kadar who'd never been anything but an Assassin as much as he could, who'd believed in the Code as strongly as Malik, no matter what else they were. Who would ever be five years old and trailing behind him, holding on to the mock-sash all Assassin children wore.

 

The strange Templar was Malik's last sight before he passed out, and the only one that he remembered, waving in and out of consciousness.

 

Malik wished he could remember the man. They must have been friends before.


End file.
